NOTE: Everything is this post is SUBJECTIVE and based on PERSONAL PREFERENCE. I'm just explaining why this is my preference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bencher

What kind of nonsense is thus?
So you beat doqn the 7990 for being dual gpu but recommend dual 770ti?

I would never take your post seriously. The op knows about dual gpu. He is using two cards at the moment.

I would take the 7990 over 7970 x2 card. 7990 is amd designed. That is my reason.

Dual GPU is always the last option. The SLI was indeed a dumb suggestion. I agree on the fact that he's running dual GPU right now, but I've ran BOTH HD6950 2GB in CF and GTX 560 Ti 2GB in SLI (I know drivers were crappier back then, no need to point that out) but here's what I learnt:
Do NOT choose dual cards over a single card because of price performance from the moment you have enough performance with one card. That also applies to many of the posts below.
The HD7990 is indeed faster than the GTX 780. That is, however the only advantage it has.
The GTX 780 is:

Single GPU (less issues, people who say that SLI/CF has 0 issues more compared to single GPU are ignorant over all the multi GPU complain threads)

Besides, the GTX 780 hits 75 FPS on average on 1440P in BF3 Fully maxed. That gives you a (some) margin for technical evolution. If you really need more performance, you can still go for the SLI option IF you can live with a dual GPU setup.

All of the above also counts for the R9-290X

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigMack70

+1 to "get a custom GTX 780 or R9 290X instead of the 7990"

7990 just isn't worth it IMO... too high a chance of really nasty coil whine, and it really doesn't perform that much better than a custom 780 or likely the 290X, and it has no upgrade path.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bencher

LOL are people really saying a 780 is close to a 7990?

Wow...

Read above about performance

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sturmangriff

I had a Powercolor Devil 13 for a few days before I returned it to Newegg due to its horrible coil whine. The performance was nice but it the fans were LOUD. I contacted Powercolor about the coil whine before I sent it back and they did not make a positive impression on me. If I bought another 7990 it would be a reference design and it would not be a Powercolor.

Performance is great (if it works, which it, most of the time, does), but the question is if it's worth all the heat, noise, power consumption and possible issues.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gomi

Former owner of a watercooled HD7990 ( reference ) - Performance was awesome, especially the new patches worked wonders.

Coilwhine though ... Oh sweet lord, it took me 5 (!) RMAs to get one with an ACCEPTABLE amount, the dream of one without just withered at around the 3rd GPU - And we are not talking about the normal coilwhine, these got IN-YOUR-FACE coilwhine - I swear, I never heard anything that crazy, and I been through piles upon piles of different cards.

14% performance advantage over a custom 780 (and likely a 290X) is absolutely not worth the lack of an upgrade path + risk of coil whine

Also remember that a card like the 780 Classified will have significantly more OC headroom than the 7990 (at least the reference 7990 - I don't know how the Devil OCs or not), which can eliminate the performance difference or actually make the 780 faster. Reference 7990s are about the worst cards out there for overclocking.

Basically my point. Happy to see that people share my opinion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bencher

Hmm... Seems like the coil whine is a bigger issue than I thought.

Considering watercooling? If not, I'd go single GPU.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakeface1

The interesting thing is the devil cards stock clocks are only 900mhz. I'm wondering if that card is overclockable. I know the red limited version of the card was. I'm was planning on getting 2 gtx 770's, but the recent price cuts and driver improvements make this a solid consideration. Either way this will be a improvement for me. I appreciate all of the comments!

About the GTX 770's: You'd be going dual GPU, which my arguments are stated above. Besides: the GTX 770 has "only" 2 GB of VRAM, which according to some is not future proof. And I think, feel free to prove me wrong, that the GTX 770 memory bandwidth might get insufficient in the near future for 1440P? Or is that only for even higher resolution setups? (4K, Surround/Eyefinity?)

As far as I can tell, ALL 7970x2's by powercolor have horrid coil whine at idle. I've owned 2 now, both have sounded exactly the same. I'll report on the third when I get it here a bit.

Read above.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigMack70

Performance does not scale on reference 7990 cards when overclocking, as your own link shows (sorry, I should have been more specific, I guess...). It's limited by underbuilt power circuitry. A pair of 7970s at that clock would be doing substantially better because they have more robust power circuitry.

Also, here's a reading comprehension question for you... have I been talking about REFERENCE 780s, or CUSTOM 780s? Hint: not reference. Also TPU's game suite is more robust than Guru3Ds, but I digress... obviously OP can look up specific benchmarks for his games and see if they are ones that behave well with the 7990 or not.

And it still doesn't matter IMO... the biggest problems with the 7990 are coil whine + no upgrade path. If a card pumps out 200fps but gives you a headache after 10 minutes of gaming, what good is it?

I know I'm in the minority, but I have the Sapphire 7990 and it has ZERO coil whine. The fans can get a little loud, but I have them on an aggressive curve. Just saying that lack of coil whine does exist as well.

I use Eyefinity 3240x1920 (3x 1080p in portrait) and a single 7950 is definitely not enough to max new games at 60fps/hz. Even if it put the res at 1600p, games still struggle if I clock my 7950 to GTX 770 or even GTX 780 speeds. For older games it does not matter.

If you aren't stuck to one GPU like I am (M-ITX mobo), 2x 7970s or even the cheaper 7950s are your best bet.

I use Eyefinity 3240x1920 (3x 1080p in portrait) and a single 7950 is definitely not enough to max new games at 60fps/hz. Even if it put the res at 1600p, games still struggle if I clock my 7950 to GTX 770 or even GTX 780 speeds. For older games it does not matter.

If you aren't stuck to one GPU like I am (M-ITX mobo), 2x 7970s or even the cheaper 7950s are your best bet.

You and I are in similar situations - using Mini-ITX boards - and I agree, this is where the benefit of the HD7990 or GTX 690 would come in handy. With that said, if the R9 290X truly matches or exceeds the performance of a single 780/Titan, this will certainly help give appreciable gains to multi-monitor users all around, without the necessity of having more than one GPU.

You and I are in similar situations - using Mini-ITX boards - and I agree, this is where the benefit of the HD7990 or GTX 690 would come in handy. With that said, if the R9 290X truly matches or exceeds the performance of a single 780/Titan, this will certainly help give appreciable gains to multi-monitor users all around, without the necessity of having more than one GPU.

Very much agreed. Although I always hear a lot of Eyefinity complaints from other users here, I actually haven't experienced any flaws from the drivers. Eyefinity surprisingly works on every game I've played, like when I tried out FF14:ARR beta and older games like Counter-Strike 1.6.